


I just want you to set me free

by a_secondhand_sorrow



Series: I’ll use you as a warning sign [2]
Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Connor is dead, Its a good time, I’m sad, Suicide, Suicide mention, This Is Sad, Yikes, Zoe’s sad, connor left Zoe a letter, family fun with the Murphy’s, jk it’s not, larry and cynthia are sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-24
Updated: 2019-03-24
Packaged: 2019-11-29 02:31:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18216992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_secondhand_sorrow/pseuds/a_secondhand_sorrow
Summary: Dear Zoe,I know it’s already too late.***Connor was dead.They’d rushed through the doors, flying past security into the ER, and there he was supposed to be, covered by a sheet, on the table.For the first time in her life, the world froze completely.***(or: she’d never been there, on the night of Connor’s death before. she’d never be there again.)





	I just want you to set me free

**Author's Note:**

> title from “bored” by billie eilish 
> 
> I had this idea, and...it stuck
> 
> please read tags for triggers

_Dear Zoe,_  
_I know it’s already too late._

Connor was dead.

They’d rushed to the hospital in the dead of night, Cynthia’s shoulders already heaving with sobs and Larry’s mouth set in a firm line. Zoe curled around herself in the backseat like a seven year old, the world distorted around her and nothing but the hum of an engine and Cynthia’s heartwrenching gasps filtering through her ears. They’d rushed through the doors, flying past security into the ER, and there he was supposed to be, covered by a sheet, on the table.

For the first time in her life, the world froze completely.

_I hope you don’t have to read this, but deep down, I know you’ll have to._

The ER rushed around her, static filling her ears. She might’ve started to fall to her knees-it was all blurry-but next thing she knew, a blanket was wrapped around her shoulders and a cup of water shoved in her hands. Her parents were gone, probably checking with doctors or filling out paperwork or wandering, in denial. She heard a choked, strangled sound cut through the static. Zoe lifted a hand to her cheek, which proved to be as difficult as pushing her hand through molasses.

Her fingers came away wet. She hadn’t realized she’d started crying.

_I won’t blame you if you don’t want to read any of this. I know this can’t make up for how shitty a brother I’ve been._

Eventually, Cynthia and Larry reappeared.

“Zoe, come on.” Cynthia choked out, making a weak grab for her arm.

Zoe only stared ahead. She’d barely noticed the hospital around her as they rushed in, but now ever noise and movement grated on her. She’d focused in, and everything was a million times too bright and too loud. Every crack in the paint on the wall was visible. Every passing glance from a nurse bore holes through her. Her parents’ voices were only a gentle hum compared to the chaos inside her head.

“Zoe,” Larry started.

_zoe_

_zoe_

_zoe_

and it ballooned into the air, echoing and reverberating, something Larry had said a million times, something she’d heard a million times, something she’d never heard like this.

until it _popped_ into her eardrum, startling her.

Slowly, she angled her head towards him.

His voice was weaker, more broken then she’d ever heard it. A completely foreign expression was on his face-deeper than she’d ever seen. He looked as close to tears as Zoe had ever seen him. Larry looked at her for another moment before casting his eyes downward, as though unable to maintain eye contact. “Zoe, please.”

_(Connor, please.)_

Zoe stared for a moment, before standing slowly, not expecting how much energy that would take.

  
Cynthia made another motion to take Zoe’s arm, but she flinched away violently.

She couldn’t even look at Cynthia’s face. She knew that if she did, she would break down.

_The worst part is, I didn’t even try to make it up to you._

The car ride home was the worst experience of her life. The air was heavy with a million unspoken words, unseen regrets, dampened memories.

Connor was _dead_.

_You didn’t deserve it, Zoe. You deserved better than me._

Larry brewed a pot coffee when they got home. There they sat at the kitchen table- _her_ kitchen table. She’d sat at it a million times. She’d never really _seen_ it before.

Cynthia had stopped crying, apparently having gone numb to the world. That was something she had in common with her husband and daughter.

Neither of her parents would look her in the eye. Some sinister voice in the back of her head whispered to her, stirring up trouble. _You’re a reminder_ , it said. _A shadow of your brother, like you’ve always been._

Zoe only stared into the depths of her coffee, letting the darkness twist into something even darker, twist into some abstract portrait of what she felt.

_I wish I could’ve been better, or at least tried to be._

She wrenched her eyes away, not quite ready to see her soul bared like-like Connor’s teeth, as he—

_(don’t look up don’t look up don’t look up)_

(she looked up anyway)

—was smirking at her from his usual spot across from her. Her eyes locked on his as she looked up; their eyes were almost mirror images of each other’s, like they always had been.

_(This is what your parents see when they look at you. This is why they can’t look you in the eye.)_

  
Her breath hitched. She couldn’t look away. It was so _Connor_ ; never really let her be free, even when he’s supposed to be gone. Always coming back to mock her.

But after a moment, his smirk twisted into a deeper expression, something full of regret and pain and longing for _better_.

_God, that’s all I wanted. But I knew I fucked things up too much to ever get there._

She blinked, and he was gone again, nothing but a shadow behind her eyelids. She couldn’t help but feel she was missing something, something big, but he was leaving her like water trickling from between her fingers, leaving her to grasp at droplets, praying one would stick and something would make sense.

No, no, that’s not how this would end. He couldn’t just come back there and then _leave_ —

_I hate myself for how I told you, but-you were the golden child. I would always pale in comparison to you._

_You’ll probably never know just how much I wanted to be like you._

Filled by a sudden burst of flame from somewhere behind her rib cage—one that was matched with a deeper, more melancholy unfurling in her chest—she knocked the coffee over, and Connor was gone completely.

Both of her parents broke out of their trances, and Zoe could see that Cynthia had started towards her, but then she started shaking her head _no, no, no_ and she couldn’t take it, she needed to be away from anywhere Connor had been, away from the memory of his eyes, so similar to hers, his smirk, his _frown_ —

She stood abruptly, and unexpectedly, Zoe burst into tears right on the spot. She choked on her own tears and continued shaking her head, trying to clear it. Dodging Cynthia’s tearstained expression once again, she rushed away from the table and up the stairs, getting away, away, _away_.

She heard nothing behind her, for once.

_But still. At the end of the day, I hope you can move on from this._

Zoe slammed the door behind her, throwing her weight onto it. Even as her back leaned against the door, the floor swayed under her. Everything was a little blurry from tears that still filled her eyes.

Her legs gave out beneath her and she began to slide down the door, the pressure of the wood to her back keeping her grounded to reality. There was a growing pounding behind her eyes; she pressed the heels of her hands into them, but the only thing she could see was Connor’s body lying prone on the table, under a stark white sheet.

_I know that this is something you’ll carry with you for your whole life. I know that you’ll get asked if you have any siblings and you’ll freeze in response. I know I’ve caused damage I’ll never see the effects of._

She looked up again, her eyes unfocused from the tears and being pressed. The pounding in her skull continued; Zoe briefly wondered if that was her new normal.

Her room was the same as it had always been.

  
She’d never see it the same way.

Remembering that she’d been here before, she fully expected Connor to start punching at her door, and she shirked away, instinctively, trying to get away from anything he could touch—

Until a voice whispered _you are a mirror image_ and she blinked, and there the image was, again.

  
_I know you feel like your whole life has been run by me._

She managed to crawl over to her bed and curl up on top, letting the soft familiarity ensconce her.

Her hands and legs were shaking, probably from a combination of the little caffeine she’d had and leftover adrenaline.

She wondered, briefly, what it had been like. To just let go. To release. To be free of everything keeping you here.

_(She wanted to be free of everything, to scrub Connor’s dead body from her memory)_

And then she thought of the sheet, and she stopped wondering. Instead, she realized that any peace he’d bought himself had been robbed from her, most likely for quite some time. For her, stolen peace was no peace at all.

_But you have the rest of your life ahead of you, and you’re gonna be brilliant._

She drifted off, eventually. With time, her limbs stopped buzzing and the post-crying drowsiness set in. She had thought she’d never sleep again, in that frantic car ride. Now it was the only thing she wanted to do.

But sleep brought dreams, and her dreams were cruel.

They were constantly shifting; the image of Connor on the table drifted up time and time again, Cynthia’s crying face begging for Zoe to let her take her arm, her own eyes staring back at her and whispering _you are just like him_ , Connor’s almost sorrowful expression from across the table, Larry’s broken voice, the heavy air of the car permeating everything.

_You’re gonna fall in love. You’re gonna do what you want to do. You’re going to live life to the fullest, Zoe, because that’s who you are._

She slept fitfully, stirring several times during the night.

Once, she thought she could see Connor’s eyes staring at her from the dark.

She bolted upright, but the room was empty.

Same as always.

Different than ever before.

 _I know_ _you, Zoe. You’re so much stronger than you think._

The house was silent. She rose from her bed, the air so thick she felt as though she could choke on it.

Cracking her door open, she saw that her parents’ lights were off.

Something compelled her to move to Connor’s room, which she did, as silently as possible. She cringed as her footsteps padded softly against the floorboards in the half-light of the moon, stopping like a deer in headlights whenever one creaked.

  
_So please. Watch the stars. Read shitty romance novels. Drink tea. Go to college and become a pretentious music major. Do all that shit you love to do. Fall in love with life._

Zoe couldn’t remember the last time she’d been in Connor’s room. It hadn’t changed much, but it still felt lived in. She wondered how much longer it would feel that way. When would it go from _lived in_ to _sacred_? When would it become little more than a shrine to a memory? When would it change in her mind, becoming a fragile portrait of her life before, of her fears and struggles?

A sudden memory struck her; being little, and sticking notes for each other on the second shelves of their bookshelves. They’d had a secret code only they knew, but she’d long forgotten it. It was tucked away in a time when she’d wanted to be just like her big brother; but years passed and they’d grown, and Connor went from a hero to her personal living nightmare, a shadow to search for from the corners of your eyes, an itch behind her eyes and the tapping of a foot on pavement and a whispered _psychopath_ and something deep within her saying _run, run, run_.

For nostalgia’s sake, she bent down to his bookshelf. As a child, the second shelf was only a brief reach down. Now, it was miles away.

  
_If not for yourself, do it for me_.

There was an envelope, _Zoe_ scrawled across the front. She’d seen that handwriting before in that spot; it had adapted a little over the years, somehow become neater and clearer while Connor’s personality had roughened. Zoe remembered that her handwriting and his had been similar, though hers had gotten more untidy and scrawling as his had bettered.

Zoe never thought she’d be able to recognize Connor’s handwriting after so many years, but instead it hit her like a jolt in the center of her chest, just with the familiarity of it.

  
She’d seen it before.

But she’d never seen it like this.

  
_And just remember; I’m supporting you every step of the way._

She began to open the envelope with shaking hands, guided only by the faint light from Connor’s window. She glanced at it, briefly, before pausing opening the envelope to let the memories wash over her.

She’d forgotten he’d had a chair staring out the window. As kids, they’d sit in the chair for hours, pointing out stars to each other. He’d known more constellations than her, but her enthusiasm could not be outmatched.

Something made her move towards it and sit-perhaps some part of her that wanted to remember the good parts of their relationship before the grief really sunk in, or relive them before her memories of the room were tainted by Connor’s death. As she pulled the letter out gently, as though it would break with any jostling, and saw it addressed to her, she was glad she was already seated.

_I’ll say hello to the stars for you._

It wasn’t quite a suicide note, but it was–she couldn’t decide if it was too little too late, or if it was just everything she needed.

It was something, at least.

Swiping away tears, she read the final words, soaking them in, before carefully re-folding it and sliding it back into the envelope. Only then did her muscles really relax, as though Connor’s words had finally driven home the reality of where he had gone. Only once she’d heard it from him had she been able to accept the fact he was gone for good, not hiding to jump out at her from some shadowy corner.

Zoe stared out at the sky, studying the stars as though they’d grant her clarity if she read them for long enough. She let the night sky wash over her and wipe away any last images from the backs of her eyes.

She’d been here before, with Connor, as they’d shared their childish wonder with each other, unknowing of what would happen to them. She was there one more time, not with Connor, but with his letter and the closest thing that remained to that little boy she’d loved so much.

She’d never be here again.

When she closed her eyes, her vision was filled with stars, Connor’s promise echoing through her mind. It was an absurd promise, but right there, it felt as infinite and boundless as the night sky and all of the stars spread out in front of her.

_Love,  
Connor_

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve overworked this so much I hate it now
> 
> anyway comment and kudos if you enjoyed, or if you’re sad. I’m sad. we’re all sad. if it makes you feel better, I’m hurt from writing this


End file.
